THERE is a requirement of at least 10 lakh teachers across the country if the constitutional obligation of imparting primary education to every child is to be fulfilled, according to Dr V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai, Vice-Chairman of the University Grants Commission.

Dr Pillai was here to inaugurate the twelfth national congress on corrosion control. He said that taking a ratio of one teacher for 30 children, at least 10 lakh teachers would be needed, as 3 crore children need to be educated in the coming three years. "It is a good thing that the Government has imposed education cess and made available Rs 3,000 crore or so for the purpose. But we have to find the teachers. We only have 3-3.5 lakh teachers. We have to devise means to bridge the gap,'' he said.

Dr Pillai said the UGC was formulating various strategies to tackle the problem. The capacities and skills of the existing teachers would have to be improved and "besides we have to impart the basic pedagogic skills to the graduates so that they can teach others. The distance education methods and the electronic media would have to be used for the purpose.''

On private universities, he said Chattisgarh had passed the Private Universities Bill and several other States were on the same path. "However, the Chattisgarh Government has found that many of the private universities are not up to the mark. The UGC is formulating certain guidelines for recognising private universities.''

Referring to Andhra Pradesh, he said the State should have more autonomous colleges. "By autonomy, I do not mean autonomy to the managements, but autonomy to teachers. Teachers should be made autonomous and accountable," he said.

On uniform syllabus, he said there should be a uniform framework (the core consisting of 60 per cent or so) around which each institution should develop its own syllabus.